


Magical Homes, and Where to Find Them (in the arms of your lover)

by Erebeus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Child abuse cases discussed, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, HD Domesticity Fest 2021, Implied/Referenced Past Child Abuse, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 06:01:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28738431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erebeus/pseuds/Erebeus
Summary: Home is a place to rest your head when the going gets tough. Home is a person who carries you when you’re tired. Home is somewhere you belong. For Harry, home is everything his past was not, everything his present is.Or in which Harry comes home to love and a husband. Featuring a movie night and backrubs.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 118
Collections: HD Domesticity Fest





	Magical Homes, and Where to Find Them (in the arms of your lover)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks ever so much to my absolutely lovely beta, C for answering all my ten thousand questions and helping me whip this into shape with her wonderfully thoughtful feedback. You are an absolute sweetheart <3  
> For prompt#1 for the H/D Domesticity fest - thanks so much to the mods for organizing it! <3

The last dregs of daylight spill across Harry’s table, catching on the number ‘nine’ at the edge of his manilla folder. It’s blocky and big, a script he doesn’t quite recognize. A new employee, he supposes. Or perhaps it has just been that long since he’s last handled such cases. Harry’s childhood’s long been an open secret around the department, and there’s an unspoken agreement to try not to give him any cases that resemble it too closely.

Usually Harry says nothing, letting his colleagues have their way of showing care for him, but this time between the messy Bulstrode case, new Ministry budget cuts, and the upcoming Christmas holidays, the department was already stretching itself thin, and Harry had to put his foot down when the others tried to keep it from him. He was, after all, fully qualified to handle the case—in fact, he was the one who had started the entire department in the first place—and he wasn’t going to let a kid suffer less attention to their case just because his colleagues wanted to coddle him.

He opens the folder again. Name, age, date filed, address, guardians… His eyes drift to the top right, to the blue eyes of a young girl. Even in a wizarding photo, she holds herself so still and quiet—as if she was trying to fold into herself, not bother anyone with her existence. He takes off his glasses and rubs his hands over his eyes. _No_ , he tells himself. No projecting. Then he gets up. It’s getting late anyway, and he’s read the file enough times that it’s burned into his memory. It’s time to go home.

Harry packs up, wears his muggle coat and makes his way to the front, making sure to bid the old lady at the front desk goodbye. A cool light breeze welcomes him as he steps out of the building. He looks up to the sky with not a whit of blue in it. It will rain soon; he should apparate home. Instead, he puts his hands in his pockets and starts walking. The streets he walks through feel just as grey as the heavens. Not the gloomy kind of grey, but like the grey of Draco’s eyes. The light peaceful kind of grey that feels infinitely bright. Harry’s favorite kind of grey. The sounds of children laughing echo in the distance as Harry approaches the neighbourhood playground. He watches as a football bounces over the wall, and the kids chase it across the street. They’re all so very _tiny_. The kids run back into the field, and Harry pauses at the gate to watch them play. Once, even he was that tiny. Most the kids he fights for right now are that tiny. How could anyone look at these small faces, and want to hurt them? A drop of water falls on Harry’s face, and he rubs it off. Then he shakes his head, and continues walking.

It’s drizzling steadily by the time he turns onto his street. Three houses down, on the right, stands a quaint little cottage. With rust red shingles covered in green vines, yellow walls trimmed with blue posies, and stone pathways tucked into overgrown wild heather, it is a patchwork of color right from a kids’ book, feeling quite out of place amongst all the respectable modern suburban houses. More than once, the residents of the street have thought that, perhaps, if magic existed, this house and its inhabitants were surely running on it. While they’re correct, for Harry and Draco, the real magic lies in the being of the house itself—that they could have a home together, a home they’ve built with love and tenderness, a home devoid of the ghosts of their past and the worries of their future… now that is _truly_ magical.

Harry climbs the two front steps, and the green door swings open under his hand. The lights switch on, and he slips his shoes and long coat off at the hat stand. A faint sizzling noise filters through the house, along with the smell of cooking spices, and Harry lets his nose lead him to the source.

In the kitchen, Draco stands in front of the stove stirring a pot of something, swaying slightly. Harry pauses in the doorway. This close, he can hear the strains of Vivaldi playing from the counter. The drizzle outside has increased to a constant pitter patter, backdropping the now louder sizzling of the pan on the stove. Draco’s hair is getting longer, curling around his nape and into the collar of his healer robes. Harry stands there for a few moments longer and watches Draco cook for him. Then he moves to take the knife from Draco’s hand.

“Harry!” Draco protests, but he lets Harry take his place easily. “Why do you always come in and try to take over exactly what I am doing?”

“Because you’re tired,” Harry points out. Draco’s face scrunches up, but all it does is make Harry bop that cute pointy nose. “You haven’t even changed.”

“Neither have you,” his husband grumbles. Harry ignores that, instead shooing Draco out of the kitchen and to the living room to set up the TV for their movie night.

 _Slice, slice, slice._ Into the pot go the onions, and he stirs them lazily, simultaneously flipping the parantha on the pan. He fishes out a tomato. The shower turns on upstairs, the thrumming sound making Harry smile softly. _Slice, slice, slice_. Draco hated feeling slimy and gross after his shifts ended, but he always rushed to the kitchen first, never wanting to let Harry make the food before him. Stubborn competitive man. In go the tomatoes too, and Harry moves to check the rice.

By the time he’s done with the chicken tikka masala, Draco has finished his shower and is waiting for him in the sitting room.

“ _Shawshank Redemption_ or _Pride and Prejudice_?” Draco asks, holding up two CDs. Harry tilts his head.

“Pride?”

“Good choice,” Draco smiles, putting Shawshank away.

Harry settles into the sofa with two plates of food in his hands. “If I’d said Shawshank, would you have actually put it on?” he asks wryly.

“No,” his dragon replies blithely, coming to sit next to him. “Now here, hand over the food.” Harry obliges. The titles roll onto the screen.

“Long day?” Harry asks.

“Very,” Draco agrees, and as if he were waiting for just that question, he immediately launches into a long rant about the new trainees and the two massive cases that came in today and the spider in his lunch sandwich and how his back hurts. Harry nods and hums at all the right spots, refilling Draco’s rice as soon as he’s done.

“You?” Draco asks him.

Harry chews his own rice, and thinks of the manilla folder he left on his desk. “It was alright,” he says finally. “New case.” Draco gives him a side-eye. Harry looks down at his lap. “It’s child neglect.”

Draco says nothing, puts his plate aside, and wraps his arms around Harry to pull him close. Harry wraps an arm back around Draco. On the screen, flowers bob in the lush green fields and birdsong plays faintly in the background. With his plate balanced on one knee, Harry continues to eat his food, now feeding Draco every other bite.

By the time they’re done eating, Draco’s eyes are already slipping shut, and Harry can see sleep creep up on his husband. Draco doesn’t even make his usual protests to Harry’s unwavering gaze trained on him. The colored lights from the TV cast soft shadows across Draco’s face, highlighting his aristocratic cheekbones and parted lips, setting the edges of his blond eyelashes aflame. Quietly, Harry pulls Draco closer so his head is resting in the crook of Harry’s neck. His husband doesn’t flinch—he’s properly asleep now. Harry runs a thumb under his dragon’s closed eyes, tracing the dark circles that hint at the grueling hours he spends saving people’s lives in the emergency ward. He gathers Draco even closer, cherishing the feel of the living breathing body against him, the incredible human warmth of his skin. He lays a soft sweet kiss on the corner of Draco’s slack lips. _Beautiful_. And then again and again, on his ear, his brow, his sloping jaw, the bridge of his nose. _Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Beautiful, and Mine. All mine._ Wetness stains the corner of Harry’s eyes as his mind wanders back to an empty cupboard with broken crayons and scavenged toy soldiers. Once, he thinks, he had nothing, yet now the universe sleeps in his arms. He rests his forehead against Draco’s and closes his eyes, reveling in the way their breaths mingle.

The credits start rolling, and Harry turns the screen off. Taking care to not wake Draco, Harry slips off the sofa and kneels in front of it. For a moment, he lets his hand lay on Draco’s knee, drinking in the disarray of blond hair across rosy cheeks and the slight drool collecting at the corners of parted lips. Then, he brings both of Draco’s arms around his neck, cradles Draco’s head on his collarbone, and slides a hand beneath each of Draco’s thighs, guiding them around his waist. He hoists him up. The muscles in Harry’s shoulders protest, but he pays them no mind. Draco’s head rolls sideways, and Harry has to heave him upwards again to bring it back into the crook of his neck. Draco shifts sleepily, a hand curls loosely into Harry’s collar, another into the back of his shirt.

Harry crosses the wooden floor, his steps in time to the rhythm of Draco’s beating heart pressed up close to his own, and at the stairs he has to adjust the man in his arms again to see the stairs beneath them. This time, Draco’s answering shift is sharper, tenser, a little more awake, as he tries to burrow into Harry’s chest. Harry stills. Two moist lips flutter at the skin of his neck, the steady rhythm of hot breaths blowing across it stuttering for a second. Then it smoothes out, and Draco goes limper than he was before. Harry moves one of his arms upwards to lay a hand on Draco’s lower back, feeling it move in measured breaths. With every step upwards, the muscles under his touch tense and loosen, and a soft smile flits across Harry’s face.

In their room, Harry lays his dragon down on the bed, draws the duvet over him and leans over to kiss his forehead. “I know you’re awake,” he murmurs, tucking blonde hair behind two pointy ears.

Draco’s lips twitch and then break into a pout, and his eyes crack open to reveal molten silver in the dark of the night. “Bugger.” Then Draco turns onto his side and lets out a low groan. “ _Bugger._ ”

Harry passes a comforting hand over Draco’s flank soothingly. “Your back?” He’s answered by another groan. Harry turns on the bedside lamp and tugs up Draco’s shirt, lifting his upper body to let it slip off his arms. Then he lets Draco down and gently turns him over onto his stomach. Outside, the rain hammering on the windowsill slowly peters out.

The first stroke of Harry’s warmed and oiled hands across Draco’s back draws a hum of pleasure. Harry digs his fingers in, seeking the bundles of tension and rubbing at them until all the muscles in Draco’s back feel like butter. As his fingers move, his mind begins to drift back to the notes in the second drawer of his cabinet. His brow furrows as his mind walks through the details all over again. _An orphan, daughter of a disowned squib. Living with her last blood relatives._ It’s going to be hard convincing the wizarding courts to take action for her _._ His fingers start faltering as his mind spirals deeper and deeper into the case, and he stares at his hands. It is the absence of Draco’s sounds that brings him back to the present, and Harry forces himself to focus on the vision in front of him. Draco’s face has gone lax, looking as if he is halfway to sleep already. The oil makes the pale expanse of his back glow warmly in the lamplight, and Harry can’t resist smoothing his hands over it again and again, feeling muscles and sinew shift under the soft skin. “Talk to me,” Draco says, his voice low and rough from sleep. Harry pauses. Draco doesn’t add anything; it’s an open invitation to say what has clearly been occupying Harry’s mind the entire evening.

“They were starving her,” he says quietly, his gaze unfocusing as he pictures the details from the file again. Even though between Draco and Molly it’s been over a decade since he’s gone to bed hungry with no idea of when his next meal will be, his tummy gives a squeeze in memory of that horrid feeling. Draco stills, and his back rises in a deep breath once, twice. Then he turns over on his side. Draco’s hand trails down Harry’s temple and tucks in wayward curls behind his ears.

“They won’t be anymore,” Draco says, sure as always that Harry will turn up enough evidence to convince the court. Harry looks up to meet soft grey eyes brimming with a sleepy stolid kind of mettle that has made him fall in love over and over again, and he cannot look away again in the face of the shining beacon of unconditional support in front of him. Draco’s hand moves from Harry’s jaw down to Harry’s waist. Harry follows the silent offer to slip into the duvet right next to him. In a fluid practiced move, his shoulder tucks into Draco’s armpit, his head under Draco’s chin, his hand over Draco’s beating heart, slotting into place perfectly.

“Talk to Amanda?” Draco suggests. Harry considers it and nods.

“I’ll call her office tomorrow.” It’s been a while since he last saw his therapist anyway. It could only do him good. “Your back still hurt?”

“All better,” Draco murmurs into Harry’s hair, pressing a soft kiss into his unruly curls. “Because of you.” Harry shifts to hide his small smile in Draco’s neck as his husband reaches up to shut the light off. Their chests rise and fall in tandem, and Harry feels the the warm loose-limbedness that comes with complete security cover him like a blanket, melting him, melding him into Draco, until they are but one creature. Harry’s sooty eyelashes flutter around the edges of his vision, framing the moonlit shadows that creep slowly across the ceiling in a curtain of feathery black, and he can’t help but think of another night, another life, watching the moonlight shine through the bars in a house he couldn’t call home. Of Draco, too, in a dark manor, trying to sleep, wandless, scared and alone. Of another child tonight, perhaps doing the same thing. Draco shifts under him, and Harry shakes these thoughts away.

Draco’s right; Harry will always figure out a way to fix things. But that’s a job for future Harry. And as far as the past is concerned… it’s in the past. Harry and Draco are here, in the present, in each other's arms, within the home they’ve built for themselves. Harry’s arms tighten around his dragon, and he slowly drifts into dreamland. They are home now. That’s all that matters.

fin.

**Author's Note:**

> Mod note: Thank you for reading this work of the Domesticity Fest! Remember to send the author a nice comment and a lovely Kudo!


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